With the removal of the minimum school day requirement beginning in the 2019–2020 school year and the rapid rise of the four-day school week, Missouri schools have been scheduling fewer days of instruction. In the 2017–2018 school year, students were in school an average of 171 days. Fast forward to 2022–2023, and that average is now 162 days. It should be noted that instructional hours have not declined by as great of an amount.
Missouri students not only have fewer days of school, but they have also been missing more days of school. Chronic absenteeism has become a major problem in our schools. Students who miss more than 10% of school days in a year are considered chronically absent.
If a student was at the minimum threshold of being chronically absent—missing 11% of school days every year—by the end of their K-12 experience they will have missed well over a full year of instruction.
Below is a graph that displays attendance trends broken down by demographics in Missouri. The graph uses proportional attendance rates. Proportional attendance rates measure the number of students who attend school 90 percent of the time or more. Let’s say a district of 10 students has a school year of 100 days. Then, let’s assume that 6 of the 10 students attend more than 90 days of school, and that the other four students attend school for 82 days. The district’s proportional attendance rate would be 60 percent.
Figure 1: Missouri Proportional Attendance Rates by Student Group
Source: Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: Current and Historical Missouri State Report Card
While COVID-19 certainly hurt attendance rates, they have not bounced back in the years following. In the 2012–2013 school year, all Missouri students had a proportional attendance rate of 88 percent. Free or reduced-price lunch students were at 83 percent, White students were at 89 percent, Black students were at 82 percent, Hispanic students were at 87 percent, and Asian students were at 94 percent. Today, the gap between all students and free or reduced-price lunch students has doubled. The gap between white students and black students has tripled.
Changing the funding formula to diminish the importance of attendance could make this problem even worse. Would giving families the option to pick the school that best meets their needs increase attendance? It is clear that state officials need to do something, and fast, before too many of our students fall too far behind.
